You’ll Get Better CTRs Using These Email Marketing Tips

You’d want that, don’t you? For most email marketers, getting their list to open their email messages has never been a problem; bringing their list to click on the links within their email messages, however, is a different story. Imagine running a restaurant. During rush hours, you see bajillions of people coming in your establishment to check out your menu. But after giving your menu a quick gander, all they do is leave without ordering a single thing. That is pretty much how email marketers feel when they see email open rates that are more than decent, yet they get very little to no clicks at all from the call-to-action links embedded in their email messages.

Have you ever experienced that yourself? Are you sick and tired of seeing click through rates that are 1% or less? If you answered with a yes, then allow me to share with you 5 proven and tested tips that seasoned marketers use to grow their CTRs.

1. Focus on 1 type of call-to-action per email.

I’m a huge fan of the, “One Page. One Purpose. Period.” principle that Oli Gardner the Co-Founder of Unbounce shared. So much so that I use this same rule even on email messages. If you’re hoping your prospects to click the “Buy Now” button in your email messages, you’d be better off if you don’t ask them to register, or share your message. Doing so can just cause them to be distracted. In other cases, they’d just find your instructions overwhelming which will cause them to ignore it.

* Note – On the subheading above, I’d like to emphasize the word “type”. I didn’t mean for you to add 1 CTA only. I meant for you to add 1 type of CTA per email.

Here’s the difference.

In your email, you can add 3 – 4 call to action buttons asking your readers to register to your new online course. In this scenario, you’ve only added 1 type of CTA (which is for your readers to register to your online course). However, if you’d ask your readers to register, share, and then buy something all in one email message, then you’d have added several types of CTAs.

The reason why I am clearing this up is that I am recommending that you add several CTAs in your email messages, but they should all be of the same type. The number of CTAs you’ll add should depend on the length of your email message.

What my team and I usually do is we add the CTAs on areas where we’ll provided massive value to the readers. That way, should they decide to take action on what we are offering, they can do so in an instant since they don’t have to look for our CTA buttons.

2. Use long text links.

Here’s the thing, I get that others are using image-based buttons to make their CTAs more visible and eye-catching. However, doing so is not without risk. Images can cause your email messages to load slower. Considering how a 1 second delay in page response can result in a 7% reduction in conversions (according to Kissmetrics), I just feel that it isn’t worth the risk.

Besides, there is an alternative that you can use. Of course, I’m talking about using long text links. According to MailChimp’s analysis, inserting links on phrases that are 7 – 10 words long is great for boosting CTRs.

3. Use P.S. sections.

Most marketers view the P.S. sections as just as important as any copy’s opening lines. Whether we’re talking about a blog post, a sales page, or an email message; it’s all the same, the P.S. trick will tend to work wonders for your CTR.

So here’s what you can do… you can add one of your long text links on your P.S. section. That way, it becomes almost impossible for your readers to miss your call-to-action buttons.

4. Use giveaways.

There is a reason why giveaways or freebies work quite well in terms of enticing your audience to take action (in your case, you’re enticing them to click your link).

Robert Cialdini’s Six Key Principles of Influence talks about the principle of reciprocity. According to this principle, people tend to return a favor that’s been given to them. That being said, if you’ll do your readers a favor like giving them freebies, they would want to do something for you in return. Since you’re quite vocal about wanting them to click your link, there’s a good chance that they’ll do that for you since they want to reciprocate the favor that you did them.

5. The power of question marks.

You’ll be amazed at how this one character can work wonders for you in terms of getting your audience’s attention. Not only that, but it also encourages your audience to think, even without you blatantly telling them so.

Here’s the deal with question marks. The thing is, our brains are wired to analyze or think everytime we see that character.

When we see sentences that end with periods, we tend to view them as a dead end, because that’s what periods are supposed to do – end sentences. Because our brains have processed the sentence as a dead end, we tend to easily ignore it.

When we see questions marks, however, our brain’s natural tendencies are to think and analyze. And so, it’ll do just that.

When your readers are in a state of thinking (instead of them going through your entire email message without REALLY digesting your ideas), they’ll be able to absorb the ideas that you are conveying in your message. Of course, since your ideas are aligned to influencing your readers to click your link, the chances of them doing so drastically increases.

What’s next?

Have you been running successful email marketing campaigns? What strategies / techniques have you been using to help you get better CTRs?

Jimmy Rodela is a Freelance Writer and a Content Marketer. He is the Founder of the Guild of Bloggers. He is a contributor on websites with millions of monthly traffic like Yahoo, Business.com, Monster, Business2Community and Social Media Today.